Manicure Monday: Bold Stripes!

As a lover of anything that has to do with manicures, I’m constantly trying to come up with something new and fun for Manicure Monday. To me, Manicure Monday has become more than just showing off what cute color I’m rocking that week. To be honest, I can’t have a Manicure Monday without making it some kind of show-and-tell for a new design. I actually can’t remember the last time I had a solid color for a manicure. I try to pull inspiration from everywhere – shapes, designs, architecture, street signs, different techniques. Sometimes, though, I pull the inspiration straight from the nail polish. I’ve heard great things about Maybelline’s new line of nail polish, so I had to try it for myself. I recently bought two colors, Maybelline’s Pedal to the Metal and Onyx Rush. I absolutely love metallic nail polish, and I wanted to try it out for myself, so I came up with this mani to show it off! Read on to find out how to get the look yourself.

Once again, start every manicure off with clean nails, followed by your favorite base coat. Like I said before, I really wanted to show off my new metallic nail polish with this mani. Unfortunately, Maybelline’s Pedal to the Metal, that looked to be a silver metallic polish in the bottle, turned out to be more of a silver glitter. And a light silver glitter, to be honest. The color wasn’t bad. I actually thought it was really pretty; it just wasn’t what I was looking for. But I decided to just run with it. After two coats of Maybelline’s Pedal to the Metal, I waited and let it dry completely before moving on. Letting it dry is really important in this mani because we’ll be working with tape. If your nails aren’t totally dry, the tape will end up pulling off your base color and you’ll wind up with a gooey mess. So just be patient.

At least 30 minutes later (you now have three coats of polish on your nails – you want to make sure you give them plenty of time to dry), you can move on to the next step. Cut thin strips of tape to lay across each nail. Here’s where you can personalize it: you can vary the thickness of the tape (which will vary the thickness of the silver that ends up showing), you can lay the tape diagonally, vertically, or horizontally, or you could even use multiple strips of tape per nail. The way I did it, I cut and placed the tape in thin, diagonal strips. Keep in mind that the larger you cut the tape, the less space you’ll have for color, and vice versa. Be sure to press the tape down onto your nail, especially around the edges. If you don’t, your color polish might seep underneath the tape and ruin the clean effect.

Choose what colors you’d like to go with your mani. I wanted to go big and bold, so I chose China Glaze’s Frostbite and mark.’s Violet Daze, two bold (but still coordinating) colors. You can pick two shades of the same color, totally different colors, or even the same color. It’s all up to you! Apply one color (mark.’s Violet Daze) from the top of your nail bed down towards the tape. The tape will be doing all the work to make the clean lines, so don’t worry if it gets a little messy! You want to be sure to keep the layer of the color polish thin so that the tape will peel off easily when you’re done.

Continue the mani by taking your second color (China Glaze’s Frostbite) and applying it from the line of tape, down to the end of your nail. Again, be sure to keep the layer of polish thin! You will want to wait again for your color coats to dry before removing the tape. Once the polish is dried, it will be easier for the tape to come off cleanly without the polish spreading.

To finish out the look, simply peel off the tape and finish with a topcoat! What colors would you use to create this bold striped mani?

About Kathleen Tower

Kathleen is the style editor for The Collabor-eight. She's a 23-year-old true Jersey girl; big hair, bigger heart. Her passion for beauty and makeup started with an internship at Seventeen Magazine and has grown ever since. After graduating from Villanova, she turned her love for Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter into a full-time job as a social media coordinator! When she's not at work, she's browsing everywhere from the Internet to the streets for her own "Manicure Monday" inspiration. She believes that true style comes from a mix of high and low, designer and drugstore, expensive splurges and nearly steals!